Spanish protest against spending cuts and changes to labour rights

Protesters in central Madrid on Sunday. Photograph: Andrea Comas/Reuters

Spain's conservative government faced its first mass protests on Sunday as hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against austerity, spending cuts and radical changes to labour rights.
Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square filled for the first time since the "indignant" protesters camped there last May, as people gathered to protest against reforms introduced by prime minister Mariano Rajoy's government.
Protesters also marched through Valencia, capital of a heavily indebted and corruption-plagued region run by Rajoy's People's party, and Barcelona. Unions claimed more than half a million people demonstrated across the country.
The protests came two weeks after Rajoy, who became prime minister in December, introduced a labour decree making it easier for employers to fire workers and opening the door to wage cuts.
Rajoy's reforms are part of a programme designed to create jobs. Spain has the developed world's highest unemployment rate. But with the economy set to shrink this year by 1.7%, even the government admits the shocking 23% unemployment rate will rise in the short term.
Other reforms include a "golden rule" limiting future budget deficits and new rules forcing banks to write down the value of property they own and set aside money against bad real-estate debts left over from Spain's burst housing bubble.
Unions complained that labour reform would lead to a fresh surge in lay-offs. Rajoy himself has said he expects them to call a general strike soon.
"There has to be a general strike," said Alberto Carrillo, a teacher who protested in Madrid. "They've cut rights, but not said how they plan to create jobs."
"When we designed this reform we were thinking of the people who are out of work, who see no future," Rajoy told a party conference on Sunday.
His government has already cut €9bn in spending and hiked income tax as it struggles to meet an EU-set deficit target this year. It will have to find at least a further €30bn, however, to meet the current deficit target – though it is hoping that the EU can be persuaded to ease up on this year's target.
Austerity has already helped drive Spain's economy back into the second part of a double-dip recession, however, with the economy shrinking 0.3% in the last quarter.
"They're not looking to the future but to the next election with cuts dictated from Brussels," said Nacho Foche, a 27-year-old university researcher who was protesting in Madrid.

Germany drawing up plans for Greece to leave the euro

Plans for Greece to default, potentially leaving the euro, have been drafted in Germany as the European Union begins to face up to the fact that Greek debt is spiralling out of control - with or without a second bailout.

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Riot police chase away high-school students during an anti-austerity rally at central Syntagma square in Athens  Photo: REUTERS

The German finance ministry is actively pushing for Greece to declare itself bankrupt and to agree a "haircut" on the bulk of its debts held by banks, a move that would be classed as a default by financial markets.

Eurozone finance ministers meet on Monday to approve the next tranche of loans from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, designed to stave off national bankruptcy while the new Greek government puts the country's finances in order.

But the severe austerity measures being demanded have caused such fury in Greece, and the cuts required are so deep, that Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, does not believe that any government would be able to implement them.

His pessimism has been tipped into despair with a secret European Commission, Central and IMF report that even if Greece made good on its promises, it would not be enough to reach the target of bringing total debt to 120 per cent of GDP by 2020.

"He just thinks the Greeks cannot do what needs to be done. And even if by some miracle they did what has been promised, he - and a growing group - are convinced it will not pull Greece out the hole," said a eurozone official.


"The idea instead is that the Greek government should officially declare itself bankrupt and begin negotiating an even bigger cut with its creditors. For Schäuble, it is more a question of when, not if."
The German finance minister's comments are certain to plunge the authorities in Athens into even deeper gloom. On Saturday they tried to sound optimistic, with a cabinet meeting to thrash out the final details of an austerity package.
The cuts, including a reduction in the minimum wage, mass redundancies within the public sector, and a slashing of the health and defence budgets, sparked rage on the streets of Athens last week, with buildings set on fire amid angry protests.
But the country's politicians are resolutely trying to sound upbeat. "The Greek people have done everything they can and we are determined to make good on our commitments," said Christos Papoutsis, public order minister.
The French prime minister, Francois Fillon, lent his support to the embattled Greeks when he cautioned last week that Europe should not "play with the default of Greece" and must now play its part.
"The Greeks have promised very important reforms," he told RTL radio. "The Europeans now have to keep their commitments."
With Greek morale at rock bottom, the national mood darkened yet further after armed thieves looted a museum on Friday in Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games, and stole bronze and pottery artefacts - just weeks after the country's National Gallery was burgled.
One Greek newspaper suggested the state could no longer properly look after the nation's immense cultural heritage. "The Greek state has gone bankrupt, let's face it," the conservative daily Kathimerini said in an editorial.
"If the state cannot guard the country's great cultural heritage for financial or other reasons it must find other ways to do it."
Mr Schäuble's pessimism will not be welcomed in Athens. The hugely influential German politician's doubts have been growing for several weeks, and prompted angry exchanges when Greece accused Germany of trying to drive it out of the euro.
His scepticism is not yet fully shared by Angela Merkel, who is said still to be determined to prevent Greece's financial collapse. "She thinks Greece going bust could cause a shock wave that buries other countries - with Spain and Italy among them. It could break apart the entire monetary union," said an official.
But it has support from Austria and Finland - holding the prospect that a eurozone meeting tomorrow will fail to agree the next set of EU-IMF payments for Greece.
Greece must service €14.5 billion of debt on March 20 and, before EU-IMF cash can flow into its accounts, persuade private creditors of the country, mainly banks, insurance companies and funds, to give up on 70 per cent of their claims.
"The private sector involvement takes at least four weeks to issue the prospectus and to get subscribers, and without a deal on Monday then time will run out in March," said an EU diplomat.
Rumours are already circulating in Wall Street that banks are preparing for a "credit event" - a technical term used by credit agencies to mean a default - in the days immediately following March 20, as Greece looks likely to be unable to meet its debts.
The sense that an endgame is approaching has been fuelled by the secret "troika" report, by EU, IMF and ECB officials on Greek debt "sustainability".
It found that even if Greece implemented all the austerity measures expected of it, and if it achieves highly optimistic economic growth targets, it will still fall short of what is needed, with debt likely to total 129 per cent of GDP in 2020.
But the European Central Bank and the Eucopean Commission are, for now, lining up with Mrs Merkel to push for the rescue attempt to continue, fearful that the financial tsunami that would be unleashed if it failed would swamp the eurozone.
Mr Schäuble maintains that since Greece is already regarded by the financial world as bankrupt, a formal bankruptcy would have no negative consequences for other euro members.

Greece shows us how to protest against a failed system

Greek cities have seen fierce protests against austerity measures imposed by the EU. Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA

I do not like violence. I do not think that very much is gained by burning banks and smashing windows. And yet I feel a surge of pleasure when I see the reaction in Athens and the other cities in Greece to the acceptance by the Greek parliament of the measures imposed by the European Union. More: if there had not been an explosion of anger, I would have felt adrift in a sea of depression.
The joy is the joy of seeing the much-trodden worm turn and roar. The joy of seeing those whose cheeks have been slapped a thousand times slapping back. How can we ask of people that they accept meekly the ferocious cuts in living standards that the austerity measures imply? Do we want them to just agree that the massive creative potential of so many young people should be just eliminated, their talents trapped in a life of long-term unemployment? All that just so that the banks can be repaid, the rich made richer? All that, just to maintain a capitalist system that has long since passed its sell-by date, that now offers the world nothing but destruction. For the Greeks to accept the measures meekly would be to multiply depression by depression, the depression of a failed system compounded by the depression of lost dignity.
The violence of the reaction in Greece is a cry that goes out to the world. How long will we sit still and see the world torn apart by these barbarians, the rich, the banks? How long will we stand by and watch the injustices increase, see the health service dismantled, education reduced to uncritical nonsense, the water resources of the world privatised, communities wiped out and the earth torn up for the profits of mining companies?
The attack that is so acute in Greece is taking place all over the world. Everywhere money is subjecting human and non-human life to its logic, the logic of profit. This is not new, but the intensity and breadth of the attack is new, and new too is the general awareness that the current dynamic is a dynamic of death, that it is likely that we are all heading towards the annihilation of human life on earth. When the learned commentators explain the details of the latest negotiations between the governments on the future of the eurozone, they forget to mention that what is being negotiated so blithely is the future of humanity.
We are all Greeks. We are all subjects whose subjectivity is simply being flattened by the steamroller of a history determined by the movement of the money markets. Or so it seems and so they would have it. Millions of Italians protested over and over again against Silvio Berlusconi but it was the money markets that brought him down. The same in Greece: demonstration after demonstration against George Papandreou, but in the end it was the money markets that dismissed him. In both cases, loyal and proven servants of money were appointed to take the place of the fallen politicians, without even a pretence of popular consultation. This is not even history made by the rich and powerful, though certainly they profit from it: it is history made by a dynamic that nobody controls, a dynamic that is destroying the world, if we let it.
The flames in Athens are flames of rage, and we rejoice in them. And yet, rage is dangerous. If it is personalised or turned against particular groups of people (the Germans, in this case), it can so easily become purely destructive. It is no coincidence that the first minister to resign in protest against the latest round of austerity measures in Greece was a leader of the extreme right party, Laos. Rage can so easily become a nationalist, even fascist rage; a rage that does nothing to make the world better. It is important, then, to be clear that our rage is not a rage against the Germans, not even a rage against Angela Merkel or David Cameron or Nicolas Sarkozy. These politicians are just arrogant and pitiful symbols of the real object of our rage – the rule of money, the subjection of all life to the logic of profit.
Love and rage, rage and love. Love has been an important theme in the struggles that have redefined the meaning of politics over the last year, a constant theme of the Occupy movements, a profound feeling even at the heart of the violent clashes in many parts of the world. Yet love walks hand in hand with rage, the rage of "how dare they take our lives away from us, how dare they treat us like objects". The rage of a different world forcing its way through the obscenity of the world that surrounds us. Perhaps.
That pushing through of a different world is not just a question of rage, although rage is part of it. It necessarily involves the patient construction of a different way of doing things, the creation of different forms of social cohesion and mutual support. Behind the spectacle of the burning banks in Greece lies a deeper process, a quieter movement of people refusing to pay bus fares, electricity bills, motorway tolls, bank debts; a movement, born of necessity and conviction, of people organising their lives in a different way, creating communities of mutual support and food networks, squatting empty buildings and land, creating community gardens, returning to the countryside, turning their backs on the politicians (who are now afraid to show themselves in the streets) and creating directly democratic forms of taking social decisions. Still insufficient perhaps, still experimental, but crucial. Behind the spectacular flames, it is this searching for and creation of a different way of living that will determine the future of Greece, and of the world.
For this coming Saturday action throughout the world has been called for in support of the revolt in Greece. We are all Greeks.

“Destroying America will be the culmination of my life’s work.” George Soros

A must read at http://theamericanjingoist.net/index.php/2010/07/28/11576/

Obama’s Puppet Master!

György Schwartz…
better known to the world as… George Soros,
Soros was born August 12, 1930 in Hungary. Soros’ father, Tivadar, was a fervent practitioner of Esperanto—a language invented in 1887, and designed to be the first global language, free of any national identity.
The Schwartz’s, who were non-practicing Jews, changed the family name to Soros, in order to facilitate assimilation into the gentile population, as the Nazis spread into Hungary during the 1930s. Soros is an Esperanto word meaning “to soar.”
In 1944 Hitler’s henchman Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary, to oversee the murder of that country’s Jews. The Soros children were all given fake identity papers, and were shipped out to various Christian families. George Soros ended up with a man whose job was confiscating property from the Jewish population. Soros went with him on his rounds.

Soros has repeatedly called 1944 “the best year of his life.”
In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Joshua Muravchik notes that, “70% of Mr. Soros’s fellow Jews in Hungary, nearly a half-million human beings, were annihilated in that year. They were dying and disappearing all around him, and their numbers no doubt included many whom he knew personally. Yet he gives no sign that this put any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect.”
During an interview with “Sixty Minute’s” Steve Kroft, Soros was asked about his “best year:”
KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who
swore that you were his adopted godson.
SOROS: Yes. Yes.
KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.
SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the
psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?
SOROS: Not, not at all. Not at all.
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
SOROS: No.

Of course he didn’t feel guilty. Soros has the moral depth of a clam. Nonetheless, he has said, “my goal is to become the conscience of the world.”
Soros told Australia’s national newspaper “The Australian”:
“America, as the centre of the globalised financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world.
“Destroying America will be the culmination of my life’s work.”
Soros also told “The Australian” that the world financial crisis was “stimulating” and “in a way, the culmination of my life’s work.”
Stimulating. Have you found the job losses, house foreclosures, and incredible national debt—stimulating? Me neither.
Obama has recently promised 10 billion of our tax dollars to Brazil (yes, billion with a “b”), in order to give them a leg-up in expanding their offshore oil fields. Obama’s largesse towards Brazil came shortly after Soros invested heavily in Brazilian oil (Petrobras).
Tait Trussel writes, “The Petrobras loan may be a windfall for Soros and Brazil, but it is a bad deal for the U.S. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that oil exploration in the U.S. could create 160,000 new, well-paying jobs, as well as $1.7 trillion in revenues to federal, state, and local governments, all while fostering greater energy security.”
Hard working, honest, American taxpayers, are being treated like gullible suckers?

America, Persia, And Israel Are Being Sacrificed For A One World Order

One World Order

World War III: It's All A Big Sick Joke.

by Saman Mohammadi via disquietreservations.blogspot.com

"If the Washington/Tel Aviv-promoted hysteria is already at fever pitch, wait for March 20, when the Iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in other currencies apart from the US dollar, heralding the arrival of a new oil marker to be denominated in euro, yen, yuan, rupee or a basket of currencies.

That would suit Asian clients - from BRICS members India and China to US allies Japan and South Korea, not to mention NATO member Turkey. But that would also suit European clients, to pay for oil in their own currency. Tehran - as well as many key players in the developing world - does want to sink the petrodollar. That may be the straw to break the American camel's back." - Pepe Escobar, "US wants SWIFT war on Iran," February 17, 2012.

"Most of all, it was a war that probably brought about more long-term changes than any other in history. Nothing demonstrated more the central position of Persia as a world power. With this war we see the end of a succession of ancient empires in Iran that began with Cyrus. It was also the end of over a thousand years of a complex interaction with the west. Persian civilization was, of course, soon to demonstrate its resilience by emerging phoenix-like out of the ashes into the brilliance of medieval Islamic Iran. But that would be a changed new Persia and a changed interaction with the west: with the ending of the old Persia, the old world also ended." - Warwick Ball, "Towards One World: Ancient Persia and the West." 2010. East & West Publishing: London. Pg. 134 - 135. The quote is from the chapter, "Two Super-Powers: Recovery, Expansion and the War That Changed the World," about the century-long war between Rome and Persia in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. Officially, the war began in 529 and ended in 629.

From its very inception, Israel was created to be destroyed in a third world war against the forces of Islam, the result of which will be a one world order. It is a cruel and miserable fate for the Jews and the people of the Middle East.

The people of all countries involved in World War III are victims of the worldwide and generational conspiracy which is loosely referred to as a one world order/world government plot. This global plot/conspiracy is satanic in nature, and includes the leaders of both the Zionists and Islamists, who are secretly working for the globalists in America and England to create a one world order.

In 1979, the Persians and Kurds in Iran were hijacked by Western-backed political Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran's religious fundamentalist community who are deeply involved in the secret global conspiracy to bring a one world government into being. The top Mullahs of Iran wear Muslim attire, but underneath, they are Freemasons part of the Illuminati who were placed into power by the shadow CIA and MI6.

Neither the leadership of Israel nor the leadership of Persia care about the well-being and security of their people. They don't have any spiritual or psychological ties to these two ancient and sacred lands which share a rich and deep history. They view the people as animals to be tricked and slaughtered, not as subjects to be ruled and well-fed, or as citizens to be represented and respected.

In ancient times, the rulers wanted to increase the productivity and population of their lands. But in modern times, the rulers want to kill their slaves in mass wars. And this is most true regarding the rulers of America and England, where the Illuminati runs the whole show, in politics as well as in entertainment.

The leadership of America and the West is a giant death cult. George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Barack Obama all share dangerous New Age beliefs, and they have all talked about the need for a "one world order," in different speeches and in various of ways.

But they don't mention the fact that they are secretly conspiring with the totalitarian leaders of Israel and Islamic Iran to start one last world war before the coming age of universal peace and world harmony, which they promise will dawn after the ritual of bloodshed.

They keep the people in the dark and feed them totalitarian lies because in their warped minds the people are worse than animals or slaves. To them, the people are a cancerous plague to be wiped off the planet like lice, while they are the gods and creators of a new world.

The dark agents of Satan who want to create a one world dictatorship view themselves as friends of mankind, but they are deluded and disturbed mental patients. In reality, they are the greatest enemies of humanity in the history of the world.

They belong in Hell, not on Earth, and certainly not in positions of power where they are able to control the minds of the people in secret and dictate the collective destiny of the human species.

Ron Paul Flushes Romney in Washington County